An experiment in creating tradition:
inspired by the British custom known as "Sunday Lunch," two sisters and their families on the Oregon coast gather weekly for simple home-cooked meals and community.

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

This Sunday we met at Kate's house and a return to nostalgia. Growing up on a small farm where we raised our own meat animals, a dinner of pot roast with vegetables was a familiar comfort in winter. The roast was part of our wonderful score of local beef, a steer butchered in October and split between several households.

The week followed a long stretch of unusually cold (in the teens!) weather for the central coast, so this warm and filling meal was a welcome sight. Kate got to "break in" her new crock pot, rounding out the entree with carrots and potatoes. The hands-off technique allowed her to focus all energy that day on her "carbolicious" baking day that included rugelach, Swedish Lucia buns and some dinner rolls for us.

I had spent the day puttering in our woodshop, and set aside just enough time to put together a simple dessert of lemon-berry tartlets. At least that's what I called them. Just simple 3" squares of puff-pastry dough, pinched to form a well that holds a spoon of lemon curd and a few blueberries and raspberries from the freezer. The berries were frozen from our summer garden, and the lemon curd made fresh from our greenhouse crop of Meyer lemons with eggs supplied by the girls, our unnamed Black Australorp hens. Set the oven to 400 for 15 mins or so, they are ready when golden.

Our late lunch was topped off with a seasonal tour of the Lincoln City Christmas lights... there aren't many, so it doesn't take long to see them all. The best display this year was on NE Holmes Road, a benefit for the My Sisters Place family shelter, to help them take care of their pets-- donations of pet food welcomed.